The Manufacturing industry has come a long way in the past 100 years. With the industrial revolutions that have powered growth from steam to electricity to computing technology- the manufacturing landscape has changed drastically.
Consumers have benefited along with manufacturers due to cheaper production, newer technologies and innovation leading to newer and better products.
Today as we stand at the brink of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – Intelligence is the driving force that will revolutionize this industry again.
With the power of Salesforce, manufacturers can research, develop, manufacture and distribute products that are attuned to customers current needs and requirements.
Salesforce for Manufacturing CRM solutions empower you to manage sales, boost productivity and develop deeper connections directly with your customer.
Digital Technologies
Manufacturers are increasingly looking for solutions that will help them digitalize their operations. This is key not only for production capabilities but also for their support teams and sales efforts.
Over the years, manufacturers have invested heavily in ERP, Supply chain as well as production facilities. However, there has not been much progress in the way their interactions with customers are
conducted. With lack of transparency and difficulties in connecting with channel partners and customers, key intelligence and feedback is lost along the way which affects productivity in the long run.
Customer expectations
The customers today expect the same personalized interaction with their manufacturers as in any other industry. Technical expertise in finetuning ERP systems and Supply Chain systems help in maximizing operational excellence. However, in today’s age where the customers are often directly in touch with manufacturers, there is a need to have more transparency and insight into the entire process. This will enable them to provide real-time updates to customers on any potential issues thus deepening their connection with their users.
Quality of workforce
The demographics of the workforce is set to change in the coming years. It is estimated that more than 2.7 million valued employees will be retiring over the next decade. This would mean making the sector interesting for the newer workforce that would be coming in to replace them. This generation is more connected to technology and would expect the same level of technical innovations at the workplace as in everyday life.
The focus in the Manufacturing industry has shifted drastically from being a Product-centric environment to becoming a Customer-centric process.
With the world’s #1 CRM platform it is now easy to coordinate production, sales and field service with innovative solutions through a single platform.
Connected Sales and Distribution
Salesforce Manufacturing allows you to improve your customer relationships. The 360-degree customer view provides a collaboration platform for your engineering, operations and other critical teams to collaborate on a global scale.
Sales Cloud Einstein and the Salesforce Mobile App are powerful tools that empower your sales teams to access the same real-time information on customers across devices. The end result is a happy customer representative and higher revenues.
Salesforce CPQ enables your sales representatives to offer tailor product mixes with price deals and quotes faster without having to wait on approvals from headquarters. Faster and more intuitive sales that meet the customers requirements are now at your fingertips.
With Pardot’s B2B Marketing Automation tool, the sales team can easily engage customers and prospective customers through the right marketing channels along your funnel. Personalized customer service with faster results- that is going to be the game-changer redefining the manufacturing industry of the future.
Intelligent Service
Lightning Service Console with a 360-degree view of the customer allows the field service team to solve issues quickly with all the information regarding warranty, installed base information etc. at their fingertips.
Field Service Lightning helps with intelligent scheduling of service teams and offers the technicians to manage their work from their mobile phones. Connectivity and mobility are the key factors that liberate the service teams to perform their best.
With the power of Salesforce Einstein, service teams have the advantage of AI to take field service to the next level. Einstein Vision helps technicians recognize parts using AI-driven image recognition technology, and Einstein Case Management, which automatically routes cases to the right agent and proactively recommends next best actions.
Connected Partners
Connect your partners closer to your operations to help boost their performance. By sharing your front office capabilities with them, you can ensure that they can become as efficient as your internal employees and serve your end customers better.
Sales Cloud PRM simplifies the partner recruitment and onboarding process, training, lead and opportunity management among other functions.
Lightning Community Builder allows you to build your own customized partner community from scratch and ensure all your specific needs are included. For those who need to deploy communities faster, prebuilt community templates from the Lightning Bolt solutions are just what you need.
Connected Operations
Salesforce ERP solutions makes it easy to break away from the restrictions of legacy systems. Custom apps that can support back office functions like – order management, inventory management. You can also access your system of records as per requirement and sync all your systems in real-time.
Salesforce Einstein also offers solutions like Einstein Prediction Builder that can give you access to insights and recommendations directly in your CRM.
Breaking away from siloed information and enabling collaboration and intelligent decision making is important in order to stay connected on a global scale.